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Clinton and the base - the "electability" argument
Much ado has recently been made about Sen Obama's demonstrated
inability to win over certain important segments of the democratic
base, viz. blue collar whites, older voters (especially older
women) and hispanics. These exit poll trends have given rise to a
particular argument about Sen Obama's electability that runs to the
effect that, because he will not be able to energize important segments
of the democratic base, he will not be able to win critical swing
states like PA & OH in November.
As Mr Marshall points out on the front page, this argument is
problematic. It is premised on the unspoken assumption that
because a given voter votes for X instead of Y in a primary, said voter
will be unwilling to vote for Y in the GE despite the fact that this
voter shares a party affiliation with Y; the truth of this assumption
is far from intuitively obvious.
For present purposes, however, I am not interested in exploring the accuracy of that premise. Let us grant it arguendo.
It seems to me that observations about Obama's ability to rally parts
of the traditional democratic base are true as far as they go, but they
only go halfway to where the Clinton supporter making the pitch
described above needs to go. Such a person needs not only to
prove that Sen Obama cannot win the votes of certain core
constituencies in November, but also that Sen Clinton can win the votes of all democratic core constituencies.
With that in mind, I would like to turn the readers attention to the recent series of exit polls conducted in PA
by the good folks at Quinnipac. I pay specific attention to these
because they treat of very recent data, and thus can be expected to
give us information about how voters are feeling right now, after several weeks of bitter, internecine struggle.
It appears that as the months of March and April wore on, African
Americans have begun to sour on Sen Clinton rather remarkably. By
the end of the poll (Apr 21) her favorable rating was at only 52% and
her unfavorable rating at 42%. In other words, the historic good
will of African Americans towards the Clintons has given way (at least
in PA) to a distinct ambivalence. Moreover, it seems that she has
not hit bottom yet; between Apr 13 and 21 (the end of the tracking
period), her favorables fell 6 pts and her unfavorables grew 12.
African Americans are just as important an element of the democratic
base as are blue-collar whites. No democrat will be able to carry
swing states like OH, MI or FL without strong turnout among black
voters in those states, and favorability ratings like those do not
augur well for Sen Clinton's ability to achieve a strong turnout.
In other words, if we really care to play the game of extrapolating
from present day primary results to results in November, Clinton is no
stronger by the "electability" measure than is Obama.
Comments (11)
The best measure of electability is by having elections. It tests your appeal, your message, your organizational skills. We have, and Obama is winning.
The Clintons are arguing against the facts here. They have performed miserably, squandered their huge institutional advantages (that don't carry over to the general by the way). Obama's lead is evidence in and if itself that he is more electable.
I once thought that Clinton would at least have the virtue of being a good fighter against the GOP, ruthless but successful. Yet her political skills have proven pretty mediocre. Her attacks don't land all that well and often backfire ("change you can xerox"). If she uses this dismal playbook agaisnt McCain, she will lose.
April 24, 2008 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you enjoy Greg Sargent's appearance on TPMtv? He was fidgeting so much that it was making me uncomfortable.
Also uncomfortable was his acceptance that the popular vote metric is "on the table" for no other reason than that Harold Ickes et al. are making the argument. I ask, "So what, Greg?"
Anyone can make arguments all day long about anything. Is it a good argument? Is the argument sound? Is it valid? I don't bother watching television news for the very reason that the bozos populating the idiot box constantly engage in the endless repetition of talking points without ever bothering to stop and question whether what's being said is even relevant.
Your insights here on the whole "electability" argument are on point. Honestly, how silly is it for the trailing candidate to attempt at arguing "electability"? I'll take a page from the Gospel of Glad here and pose this conundrum to Hillary Clinton and her supporters: "Just beat him. Period."
Just win. Just win the nomination. Win the elections and send him home. You see, if you do this you no longer have to find yourself in the unfortunate position of being behind in the fourth quarter and wondering aloud why the other team can't "seal the deal". The deal will be sealed when we hear the buzzer and the outcome isn't going to look a whole lot different than it does right now.
Delegates are the currency of the nomination game as the rules stand. Win them or go home, but spare me the labored arguments over "electability", the relevance of the popular vote, etc.
April 24, 2008 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
But she knows better than we do, we're just voters; remember?
April 25, 2008 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, too much acquiescence to Clintonian talking points and spin. "Hey, why not count Florida!" etc.
Electability is always a scam. True metrics for "electability" are votes, pure and simple, not hypotheticals and arguments.
April 25, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is it that other folks, like Genghis for instance, can author one of these Café posts and have it look normal, but every time I write one of these things, I get huge gaps between the paragraphs and wierd line breaks? What am I doing wrong. All I ever type between paragraphs is one carriage return. Why the huge gaps? Why the wierd line breaks? Anyone who can suggest means of solving this would be much appreciated.
April 24, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll recommend your substantive posts over the well-formatted snark anyday.
April 25, 2008 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are most kind. That said, if anyone can tell me what I am doing wrong with the formatting, I would still be greatly obliged to him or her.
April 25, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's wrong with well-formatted snark?
It's our veritable raison d'etre! The very essence of why we log on!
*sigh*
On your main point, Hillary would have had overwhelming black support in the general if she knocked Obama out, as planned, by winning the votes.
At this point if she "won," I think that result would not follow because her only path would exacerbate and put in really really really stark relief that she had fewer popular delegates. In the canon of "we got screwed" it would make Bush-Gore shrivel in comparison.
Very good post, as always.
April 25, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I reject and denounce the implication that snark is necessarily lacks substance. Only bad snark lacks substance, as does bad sincerity (which is not to say that I haven't contibuted bad snark).
Greg, good post. Sorry that it took so long to get on the list.
I write my posts in a pure text editor like Notepad. I'm not sure what the Mac equivalent is. If you copy-and-paste from word, unexpected formatting might be inserted. If you do use Notepad, make sure to turn off word-wrap before you copy-and-paste, or you might get unexpected line breaks.
April 25, 2008 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great post, Greg. This whole "electability" non-issue is premised on the assumption that white people's votes are somehow more important than black people's votes. Clinton wins white working-class Pennsylvanians approximately 60-40. That's spun into an electability problem for Obama. Obama wins black Pennsylvanians 92-8. That's somehow not an electability problem for Clinton?
Obama knows that the Dem nominee can't afford to write off any demographic. He campaigns among all demographics, and doesn't lose any of them -- not white workers, not mature women, not the over-65 set -- by the margins by which Clinton has been losing African-Americans since SC.
Moreover, even on the PA numbers, the "he can't win working-class whites in the GE" argument doesn't hold up. Here's my thumbnail calculation 30% of Clinton supporters say they wouldn't vote for Obama in the GE. Even assuming that number wouldn't decline as we get toward November and the animosity fades, that means 70% of Dems who voted for Clinton in the primary would vote for Obama in the GE. So, if current polls predict the GE (a big "if"), Obama could expect to win the votes of his 40% of white working-class PA Democrats, as well as another ~40% (i.e., 70% of 60 = 42) of white working-class Democrats who preferred Clinton but want to see a Democrat in the White House. Winning ~80% of white working-class Democrats hardly sounds unelectable even if "electability" is defined narrowly to mean "white working-class Democrats in Pennsylvania will vote for him."
Not to mention Obama's much greater appeal to Republican and Independent crossovers, and his wins in heavily working-class white states such as KS and SD, and his wins in working-class white swing states like MN, WI and CO, and polls indicating his electability against McCain in MI. Sheesh.
April 25, 2008 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whats your point Greg. They both lose? Is it time to bring back John Kerry?
April 25, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
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